I have been inspired to write this article on Sant Dadu Dayal (1544—1603) of Gujarat and Rajasthan by seeing the entry on 22-2-2010 in the Sanatan Almanac (Hindu Calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma) published by Sanatan Sanstha in Goa. The entry on this date relates to ‘Dadu Dayal Jayanthi, Rajasthan, Gujarat’.

This great Hindu Calendar of Sanatan Sanstha is a veritable Hindu Encyclopedia. It is a spiritual power station of our timeless Hindu tradition. It is a storage warehouse of the most precious jewels of Hinduism. It is a Hindu Library; a great Hindu Amphitheatre; a Hindu Museum; a Hindu Hall of Timeless Archives; a seat of Hindu Justice and above all a seat of Informal Hindu People’s Government. This beautiful Hindu calendar rooted in Sanatana Dharma is now available in five languages–Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and English. I understand efforts are afoot to bring out this Hindu calendar in two more languages—Tamil and Malayalam. It is absolutely necessary in the larger national interest of promotion of Hindu Unity and Hindu Solidarity to bring out this calendar in all the major languages of India without any further delay. I offer my reverential salutations to Guruji H.H.Bhaktaraj Maharaj and his chosen disciple Guruji Dr.Jayant Balaji Athavale for giving us all the blessing of seeing and using this Hindu Calendar everyday.

Dadu Dayal Jayanthi falls today (22-2-2010). Dadu Dayal (1544-1603) was a great saint from Gujarat who spent the best part of his spiritual life in Rajasthan. Consequently he has thousands of devotees both in Gujarat and Rajasthan who worship him with great reverence and devotion. “Dadu” means brother, and “Dayal” means “the compassionate one”.

Very few authentic details relating to the early life of Dadu Dayal ji Maharaj are available. Born in Ahmedabad in 1544, he made Rajasthan his home. Like Saint Kabir, Dadu came from one of the many lower artisan castes. It is said that Dadu was a foster son of Lodhi Ram, a Naga Brahmin of Ahmedabad, who had found the infant floating on the waves of the Sabarmati river in 1545. Dadu Dayal lived in the Jaipur region of Rajasthan, most probably as a pinjari, a cotton carder. He married and had a family of two sons and two daughters. He attained Samadhi in Naraina in Jaipur district in 1603. Emperor Akbar is said to have been one of his followers.

Dadu Dayal is one of the major representatives of the Nirguna Sant traditions in Northern India. He gathered around himself a group of followers, which became known as the Dadu-panth in his own lifetime. This organization has continued in Rajasthan to the present-day, and has been a major source of early manuscripts containing songs by the North Indian saints.

Dadu ji had 100 disciples who followed his teachings and attained salvation. He instructed an additional 52 disciples to set up ashrams, known as ‘Thambas’ around the region to spread the Lord’s word.

Five thambas are considered sacred by the followers, namely, Naraina, Bhairanaji, Sambhar, Amer, and Karadala (Kalyanpura). Followers of these thambas then spread and set up other places of worship.

Shri Dadu Dham Bhairana, which lies in the secluded hilly tract of Bichoon district in the Jaipur division of Rajasthan, has become a sacred place of pilgrimage for lakhs of devotees of Saint Dadu Dayal Ji Maharaj from Haryana. The devotees come from Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and other parts of the country. They hold the place in reverence. The remaining part of the story relating to the eternal importance of Bhairana in the life of Daduji Maharaj can now be told.

The ancient Bhairana hill, which is situated amidst exquisite natural surroundings, has been the hermitage of many saints and seers since times immemorial. It is said that at the pressing solicitations of Uddhava Bhagat, a prominent resident of Bhairana, on one occasion Daduji Maharaj himself made a brief visit to Bhairana during which time he intuitively and instantly realised the spirit of the adorable sanctity of this ancient abode of saints. Later at the time of his departure from the world in 1603, Daduji instructed his disciple-saints at Naraina thus: “After my demise, take my body to the Bhairana hill and then leave it there at the spot in its deep gorge. Hence forward, it shall be known as our sanctum-sanctorum and it shall continue to be a place of worship for saints and sadhus for all times to come in the future as well.”

Accordingly, when Dadu Ji Maharaj breathed his last on in 1603, his body was taken in a palanquin from Naraina to Bhairana and placed there in its gorge by thousands of his disciple-saints. When they were engaged in a discussion regarding the last rites to be performed, a supernatural incident is said to have occurred all of a sudden. Tila Ji, a disciple-saint of Dadu Ji Maharaj, saw his guru standing at the gate of a cave near the hilltop. He brought it to the notice of others too. Instantly Daduji Maharaj spoke “Satya Ram” to all and then vanished into the cave. According to the legend and tradition, the palanquin also disappeared and only some flowers were left there. The devotees had to remain contented with performing the last rites with those flowers at that site where now stands a large memorial, which is sacred to the Dadu-panthis.

The place is now popularly known as Dadu Khol or Dadu Ganga where ashes of saints, sadhus and other devotees of the Dadu cult are scattered at this sacred spot very much like the immersion of the ashes of the Hindus in the River Ganga at Haridwar.

Shree Dadu Dayal Dham near Kankaria Lake in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Dadupanth even today is a strong movement in the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and the adjoining regions. Daduji belongs to the lineage of Nirguna Sants like Kabir and Guru Nanak.

The Vaishnava Sant tradition developed in Maharashtra and it focused on devotion to a “Saguna” form of Lord Vishnu or Lord Krishna. Another Sant tradition developed in several parts of Northern India and more particularly in the Punjab which advocated devotion to a ‘Nirguna’ form of the Lord viewed as the ineffable absolute without shape or form, the source and support of the Cosmos, by Whose Grace beings are liberated from the cycle of birth and death. Kabir, Guru Nanak, Meera Bai, Ravidas and Dadu Dayal belonged to this Nirguna Sant tradition.

Dadu Dayal was a great poet-mystic and spiritual Master of Divine Light, Sound, and Nirguna Bhakti from Rajasthan in the lineage of Guru Kabir. Dadu alludes to the bliss of Sahaja in his songs. Much of the imagery used in his songs is similar to that used by Kabir, and similar also to that used by the earlier Sahajiya Buddhists and Nath yogis. Dadu’s compositions were recorded by his disciple Rajjab and are known as the Dadu Anubhav Vaani, a compilation of 5,000 verses. His songs are in a Hindi dialect known as Braj Bhasa, being a mixture of Hindi and Rajasthani. Janagopal another disciple of Dadu Dayal wrote the earliest biography of Dadu.

Translations of Dadu bhajans are quite rare in English. Let me give an English translation of two of the verses of Sant Dadu Dayal titled ‘The Vision of the Beloved’ and ‘An Outer Guru That Is Not an Inner Guru, Not a Qualified Teacher’

I. The Vision of the Beloved

One sits fearlessly by repeating God’s Name;
the Negative Power can never consume him.
When you ride the elephant, 0h Dadu,
then dogs bark in vain.
When love and devotion arise,
one is firmly established in blissful meditation.
With the grace of the Master,
he then drinks the divine Nectar, 0h Dadu.
By being dedicated to the Lord,
millions of obstacles are removed.
A tiny spark the size of a mustard seed
burns a huge amount of wood, 0h Dadu.
Impurities and blemishes of the mind
are burnt up in the fire of separation.
The separated lover will now see
the vision of the Beloved, 0h Dadu.

II. An Outer Guru That Is Not an Inner Guru, Not a Qualified Teacher

The whole world makes an outer display,
whereas the practice of the Saint is within.
This is the difference between the two;
hence no accord is found between them.

A new pot taken from the potter’s furnace
may be decorated with many pictures outside;
But of what use will it be to you,
0h Dadu, without any contents?
Such are the ones who make outer display of religiosity.

From one who bears no outer religious symbols,
but has unfathomable riches within,
receive the wealth and keep it within
your heart, 0h Dadu, and be obedient to such a Saint.

There is a great difference between a Saint and a mimic,
the two are as far apart as earth and sky.
The Saint is absorbed in God, whereas
the mimic pins his hopes on the world.

The One alone dwells within my heart,
Day and night I repeat His Name.
The Name of God alone is true;
keep that within your heart.
Forsake all hypocrisies and cumbrous practices;
this is the teaching of all Saints, 0h Dadu.

We can see the essence of similarity between the above verse and the following verse of Kabir titled ‘Weaving Your Name’. Kabir too was a mystical poet like Sant Dadu Dayal. Kabir belonged to the 15th century. Both Kabir and Sant Dadu Dayal belonged to the Nirguna Sant Tradition.

I weave your name on the loom of my mind,
To make my garment when you come to me.
My loom has ten thousand threads
To make my garment when you come to me.
The sun and moon watch while I weave your name;
The sun and moon hear while I count your name.
These are the wages I get by day and night
To deposit in the lotus bank of my heart.

I weave your name on the loom of my mind
To clean and soften then thousand threads
And to comb the twists and knots of my thoughts.
No more shall I weave a garment of pain.
For you have come to me, drawn by my weaving—
My ceaselessly weaving your name
On the loom of my mind.

I would also like to give another example from the same Nirguna Sant Tradition. Ravidas was a Hindu cobbler of 15th century Varanasi. He is remembered for his beautiful hymns and his gentle piety which drew many seeking souls to his shoe shop. I am presenting below a poem by Sant Ravidas titled ‘The City of God’, Considered one of his most beautiful poems.

Grieve Not is the name of my town.
Pain and fear cannot enter there,
Free from possessions, free from life’s taxes,
Free from fear of disease and death,

After much wandering I am coming back home
Where turns not the wheel of time and change,
And my Emperor rules, without a second or third,
In Abadan, filled with love and wisdom.

The citizens are rich in the wealth of the heart,
And they live ever free in the City of God.
Listen to Ravidas, just a cobbler:
“All who live here are my true friends.”

Philosophy in India is essentially spiritual. It is the intense spirituality of India, and not any great political structure or social organization that it has developed, that has enabled it to resist the ravages of time and the accidents of history. External invasions and internal dissensions came very near crushing its civilization many times in its history. The Greek and the Scythian, the Persian and the Mughal, the French and the English have by turn attempted to suppress it, and yet it has held its head high. India has not been finally subdued and its old flame of spirit is still burning. Throughout its life it has been living with one purpose. In every age it has fought for truth and against error. The saints and sages of India throughout its long and chequered history have striven for a socio-spiritual reformation of the country. The idea of Plato that philosophers must be the rulers and directors of society has always been practiced in India. The ultimate truths are truths of spirit, and in the light of them actual life has to be refined.

To conclude in the beautiful and sublime words of Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, another great philosopher-King of India:

From the beginning of her history India has adored and idealized, not soldiers and statesmen, not men of science and leaders of industry, not even poets and philosophers who influence the world by their deeds or by their words, but those rare and more chastened spirits whose greatness lies in what they are and not in what they do; men who have stamped INFINITY on the thought and life of the country, men who have added to the invisible forces of goodness in the world. They are the saints and sages, the sants, the rishis and the maharishis of India. To a world given over to the pursuit of power and pleasure, wealth and glory, they declare the resplendent splendour and transcendental reality of the unseen world and the eternal clarion call of the spiritual life. Their self-possession and self-command, their strange, deep and subtle wisdom, their exquisite kindness and courtesy, their humility and gentleness of soul, their abounding humility, proclaim that the destiny of man is to know himself and thereby further the universal life of which he is an integral element. This supreme ideal has dominated the Indian religious landscape for more than 50 centuries.

Born on 28th August 1942 at Tiruchirappalli, South India, V. Sundaram had his education in Simla and New Delhi. He took his B.A. (Hon.) Degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in 1961. He also took his M.A. Degree in Economics, with specialization in Industrial Economics, from Delhi University in 1963. He worked as Lecturer in Economics in Delhi University for two years till he joined the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) in 1965. He was allotted to Tamil Nadu Cadre and has served with distinction in several high positions in Tamil Nadu Government from 1966 to 1994. He sought his voluntary retirement from the I.A.S. in 1994.

His record as Development Administrator in Tamil Nadu has been outstanding. He was the first Chairman of Tuticorin Port Trust. He was the architect responsible for undertaking and completing all the Port Works relating to the creation of breakwaters, the Oil Jetty and the Coal Jetty in Tuticorin Port. On account of his dynamism and vision, Tuticorin Port was put on the Maritime Map of South East Asia.

In the field of Social Welfare, he has been devoted to the welfare and rehabilitation of the physically handicapped, particularly the patients suffering from leprosy. As Director of Social Welfare, he established 10 Homes in Tamil Nadu for the rehabilitation of vagrant beggars afflicted with leprosy and leprosy patients languishing below the poverty line.

After coming out of the Government in April 1994 he has held several responsible positions both in the public and private sector. He was Administrator of the World Bank assisted National Highways Project relating to four-laning of the National Highway from Cuttack to Kolkatta with Headquarters in Bhuvaneshwar. He was Secretary-General of Hindustan Chamber of Commerce, Chennai for two years.

Till January 2010, he was working as Associate Editor of News Today (a daily in English from Chennai) and Malai Sudar (a daily in Tamil from Chennai). As a fearless journalist, he has contributed, over a period of 5 years, more than 2500 articles in the field of economics, literature, art and culture, religion and philosophy, apart from politics and public affairs. He is known for his forthright, hard-hitting and fearless journalism. His watchwords are S G S T—Stern Grim Scorching Truth! He is known for his independence and courage of conviction. His motto is: “without courage there can be no truth and without truth there is no other virtue”.

As a lover of books he has a large private library, full of rare and antiquarian books. He has authored several books and monographs.

Dr. ‘Indira’ Parthasarathy, the highly decorated and internationally known Tamil novelist and man of letters reviewed Shri Sundaram’s book Essays and Reviews, which was released in 1993:

What strikes me most after reading this modestly entitled book “Essays and Reviews,” is the immense versatility of the author. He is totally at ease dealing with marbles as well as metaphysics. This anthology features articles on wide-ranging subjects such as History, Biography, Literature, Social and Economic Development and also a few Autobiographical sketches. The recurring theme in all these topics is what appears to me Sundaram’s nostalgia for the past and his anxiety about the future. In short, he is obsessed with what he describes as “Madame Time”. . . . He is Proustean in his objective approach to the past, as golden moments gone for ever; Carlylian in glorifying heroes of a bygone era as men of nation’s destiny and Hegelian, in elevating history to replace God. To him, it appears, history is the arbiter of all values and rightly so. Sundaram is a poet at heart. It is reflected in all his writings. If poetry is a “Style in Thinking” as Eliot says, there is ample evidence in his anthology that Sundaram has his own distinctive and imaginative way in approaching his themes. All the essays in the anthology announce the arrival of a multi-dimensional scholar and also a poet—Could this be a contradiction in terms—with an instinctive genius, for discovering the “astonishingness” in the most commonplace things which Mrs. Mathuram Bhoothilingam aptly describes as “The Spirit of Wonder.”

Dr. ‘Indira’ Parthasarathy gave this final literary verdict to Shri V. Sundaram’s book. “In an era of ‘aesthetic abundance’ unfortunately ushered in by democracy and technological explosion, looking for needles in haystacks has become the full-time occupation of a Conservative reader, who still clings to the old-fashioned belief that quality is all. I don’t feel ashamed to confess that I am a Conservative in regard to my reading habits and I am immensely happy, now that I have found a needle.”

V. Sundaram is a lover and keen student of Carnatic Music. He is a trained Mridangam Player (a percussion instrument like the drums). He has a rare and magnificent collection of rare audio voices of great statesmen and men of history, scholars, philosophers and poets of international fame. A keen collector of South Indian art, he has donated several bronzes and other art objects to the Madras Museum.

V. Sundaram is married to Padma who comes from a family of distinguished Sanskrit scholars. He hails from Ennappadam village near Palghat, Kerala. His wife Padma Sundaram hails from Tondikulam Village, near Nurani Village near Palghat Town, Kerala.

Among many other things, V. Sundaram has been greatly influenced by the writings of Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980) and Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).

He has kept the following quotation from the writings of Morganthau on his working table for guidance everyday:

To be able to work in the service of a great idea, on behalf of an important goal; to be able to commit every nerve, every muscle, and every drop of sweat to a work, to a great task; to grow with the work, to become greater oneself in the struggle with one’s betters’ and then to be able to say at the end: I die, but there remains something that is more important than my life and will last longer than my body: my work. That is my hope, which is worthy of tremendous efforts, that is my goal, for which it is worth living and, if need be, dying.

The other quotation is from Sir Winston Churchill. In order to stoutly defend the deathless cause of public interest, V. Sundaram sought voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1994 at the age of 51. At that time he quoted the following words of Sir Winston Churchill and told the Press that they were his sounding signals and guiding lights: “The only shield to a man’s honour and dignity is his conscience, the sincerity and the rectitude of his actions. Armed with this shield, he shall always march amidst the ranks of honour, whichever way the fates might play.”

Between the moonlight and the fire
In winter twilights long ago,
What ghosts we raised for your desire,
To make your merry blood run slow!
How old, how grave, how wise we grow!
No Christmas ghost can make us chill,
Save those that troop in mournful row,
The ghosts we all can raise at will!

The beasts can talk in barn and byre
On Christmas Eve, old legends know.
As year by year the years retire,
We men fall silent then I trow,
Such sights hath memory to show,
Such voices from the silence thrill,
Such shapes return with Christmas snow,—
The ghosts we all can raise at will.

Oh, children of the village choir,
Your carols on the midnight throw,
Oh, bright across the mist and mire,
Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!
Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,
Let’s cheerily descend the hill;
Be welcome all, to come or go,
The ghosts we all can raise at will.

Friend, sursum corda, soon or slow
We part, like guests who’ve joyed their fill;
Forget them not, nor mourn them so,
The ghosts we all can raise at will.

The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid—the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound.

Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate and now decrease,
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace,
Peace and good-will to all mankind.

Rise, happy morn! rise, holy morn!
Draw forth the cheerful day from night;
O Father! touch the east, and light
The light that shone when hope was born!

by Joe Cone (1869-?1925)

The Christmas Feeling

I like the Christmas Feeling that is filling all the air,
That fills the streets and busy stores, and scatters everywhere;
I like the easy manner of the people on the street,
The bundle-laden people, and the shop-girls smiling sweet.
There’s a glow of warmth and splendor in the windows everywhere,
There’s a glow in people’s faces which has lately stolen there;
And everywhere the bells ring out with merry peal and chime,
Which makes me like the Feeling of the happy Christmas time.

I like the Christmas Feeling; there is nothing can compare
With the free and kindly spirit that is spreading everywhere;
And every heart for once is full of good old Christmas cheer.
I like to Feel the presents as they reach me day by day;
The presence of the presents drives my loneliness away.
To Feel that I’m remembered is a Feeling most sublime,
The Feeling of the Feeling of the happy Christmas time.

Would that our scrupulous sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving the memory help when she could weave
A crown for Hope!—I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,
Killing the bud o’er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud, and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial spring.

It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars,
Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

‘Twas in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot’s flight,
From lonely revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell
His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;
What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago?

Within that province far away
Went plodding home a weary boor;
A streak of light before him lay,
Fallen through a half-shut stable-door,
Across his path. He passed; for naught
Told what was going on within.
How keen the stars! his only thought;
The air how calm, and cold, and thin!
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

O strange indifference! Low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why;
The world was listening unawares.
How calm a moment may precede
One that shall thrill the world forever!
To that still moment none would heed,
Man’s doom was linked, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

It is the calm and solemn night!
A thousand bells ring out and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness, charmed, and holy now!
The night that erst no name had worn,
To it a happy name is given;
For in that stable lay, new-born,
The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.

Anonymous

The Knighting of the Sirloin of Beef by Charles the Second

The Second Charles of England
Rode forth one Christmas tide,
To hunt a gallant stag of ten,
Of Chingford woods the pride.

The winds blew keen, the snow fell fast,
And made for earth a pall,
As tired steeds and wearied men
Returned to Friday Hall.

The blazing logs, piled on the dogs,
Were pleasant to behold!
And grateful was the steaming feast
To hungry men and cold.

With right good-will all took their fill,
And soon each found relief;
Whilst Charles his royal trencher piled
From one huge loin of beef.

And never was a royal jest
Received with such acclaim:
And never knight than good Sir Loin
More worthy of the name.

Anonymous

Madonna and Child

This endris night
I saw a sight,
A star as bright as day;
And ever among
A maiden sung,
Lullay, by by, lullay.

This lovely lady sat and sang, and to her child she said,—
“My son, my brother, my father dear, why liest thou thus in hayd?
My sweet bird,
Thus it is betide
Though thou be king veray;
But, nevertheless,
I will not cease
To sing, by by, lullay.”

The child then spake; in his talking he to his mother said,—
“I bekid am king, in crib though I be laid;
For angels bright
Down to me light,
Thou knowest it is no nay,
And of that sight
Thou mayest be light
To sing, by by, lullay.”

“Now, sweet Son, since thou art king, why art thou laid in stall?
Why not thou ordain thy bedding in some great kingès hall?
Methinketh it is right
That king or knight
Should be in good array;
And them among
It were no wrong
To sing, by by, lullay.”

“Mary, mother, I am thy child, though I be laid in stall,
Lords and dukes shall worship me and so shall kingès all.
Ye shall well see
That kingès three
Shall come on the twelfth day;
For this behest
Give me thy breast
And sing, by by, lullay.”

“Now tell me, sweet Son, I thee pray, thou art my love and dear,
How should I keep thee to thy pay and make thee glad of cheer?
For all thy will
I would fulfil
Thou weet’st full well in fay,
And for all this
I will thee kiss,
And sing, by by, lullay.”

“My dear mother, when time it be, take thou me up aloft,
And set me upon thy knee and handle me full soft.
And in thy arm
Thou wilt me warm,
And keep me night and day;
If I weep
And may not sleep
Thou sing, by by, lullay.”

“Now, sweet Son, since it is so, all things are at thy will,
I pray thee grant to me a boon if it be right and skill,
That child or man,
That will or can,
Be merry upon my day;
To bliss them bring,
And I shall sing,
Lullay, by by, lullay.”

No news of navies burnt at sea,
No noise of late-spawned Tityries,
No closet plot or open vent
That frights men with a Parliament:
No new device or late-found trick,
To read by the stars the kingdom’s sick;
No gin to catch the State, or wring
The free-born nostrils of the king,
We send to you, but here a jolly
Verse crowned with ivy and with holly;
That tells of winter’s tales and mirth
That milkmaids make about the hearth,
Of Christmas sports, the wassail-bowl,
That’s tost up after fox-i’-th’-hole;
Of Blindman-buff, and of the care
That young men have to shoe the mare;
Of Twelve-tide cake, of peas and beans,
Wherewith ye make those merry scenes,
When as ye choose your king and queen,
And cry out: Hey, for our town green!
Of ash-heaps, in the which ye use
Husbands and wives by streaks to choose;
Of crackling laurel, which foresounds
A plenteous harvest to your grounds;
Of these and such like things, for shift,
We send instead of New-Year’s gift:
Read then, and when your faces shine
With buxom meat and cap’ring wine,
Remember us in cups full-crowned,
And let our city-health go round,
Quite through the young maids and the men
To the ninth number, if not ten;
Until the fired chestnuts leap
For joy to see the fruits ye reap
From the plump chalice and the cup
That tempts till it be tosséd up.
Then, as ye sit about your embers,
Call not to mind those fled Decembers;
But think on these that are to appear
As daughters to the instant year;
Sit crowned with rose-buds, and carouse,
Till Liber Pater twirls the house
About your ears; and lay upon
The year, your cares, that’s fled and gone.
And let the russet swains the plough
And harrow hang up resting now;
And to the bagpipe all address
Till sleep takes place of weariness;
And thus, throughout, with Christmas plays
Frolic the full twelve holydays.

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on St. Distaff’s day;
From the plough soon free your team,
Then come home and fodder them;
If the maids a-spinning go,
Burn the flax and fire the tow;
Scorch their plackets, but beware
That ye singe no maiden-hair;
Bring in pails of water then,
Let the maids bewash the men;
Give St. Distaff all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night,
And next morrow every one
To his own vocation.

Anonymous

Santa Claus

He comes in the night! He comes in the night!
He softly, silently comes;
While the little brown heads on the pillows so white
Are dreaming of bugles and drums.
He cuts through the snow like a ship through the foam,
While the white flakes around him whirl;
Who tells him I know not, but he findeth the home
Of each good little boy and girl.

His sleigh it is long, and deep, and wide;
It will carry a host of things,
While dozens of drums hang over the side,
With the sticks sticking under the strings:
And yet not the sound of a drum is heard,
Not a bugle blast is blown,
As he mounts to the chimney-top like a bird,
And drops to the hearth like a stone.

The little red stockings he silently fills,
Till the stockings will hold no more;
The bright little sleds for the great snow hills
Are quickly set down on the floor.
Then Santa Claus mounts to the roof like a bird,
And glides to his seat in the sleigh;
Not the sound of a bugle or drum is heard
As he noiselessly gallops away.

He rides to the East, and he rides to the West,
Of his goodies he touches not one;
He eateth the crumbs of the Christmas feast
When the dear little folks are done.
Old Santa Claus doeth all that he can;
This beautiful mission is his;
Then, children, be good to the little old man,
When you find who the little man is.

by Edwin Lees

Signs of Christmas

When on the barn’s thatch’d roof is seen
The moss in tufts of liveliest green;
When Roger to the wood pile goes,
And, as he turns, his fingers blows;
When all around is cold and drear,
Be sure that Christmas-tide is near.

When up the garden walk in vain
We seek for Flora’s lovely train;
When the sweet hawthorn bower is bare,
And bleak and cheerless is the air;
When all seems desolate around,
Christmas advances o’er the ground.

When Tom at eve comes home from plough,
And brings the mistletoe’s green bough,
With milk-white berries spotted o’er,
And shakes it the sly maids before,
Then hangs the trophy up on high,
Be sure that Christmas-tide is nigh.

When Hal, the woodman, in his clogs,
Bears home the huge unwieldly logs,
That, hissing on the smould’ring fire,
Flame out at last a quiv’ring spire;
When in his hat the holly stands,
Old Christmas musters up his bands.

When cluster’d round the fire at night,
Old William talks of ghost and sprite,
And, as a distant out-house gate
Slams by the wind, they fearful wait,
While some each shadowy nook explore,
Then Christmas pauses at the door.

When Dick comes shiv’ring from the yard,
And says the pond is frozen hard,
While from his hat, all white with snow,
The moisture, trickling, drops below,
While carols sound, the night to cheer,
Then Christmas and his train are here.

Ye who have scorned each other,
Or injured friend or brother,
In this fast-fading year;
Ye who, by word or deed,
Have made a kind heart bleed,
Come gather here!
Let sinned against and sinning
Forget their strife’s beginning,
And join in friendship now.
Be links no longer broken,
Be sweet forgiveness spoken
Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have loved each other,
Sister and friend and brother,
In this fast-fading year:
Mother and sire and child,
Young man and maiden mild,
Come gather here;
And let your heart grow fonder,
As memory shall ponder
Each past unbroken vow;
Old loves and younger wooing
Are sweet in the renewing
Under the Holly-Bough.

Ye who have nourished sadness,
Estranged from hope and gladness
In this fast-fading year;
Ye with o’erburdened mind,
Made aliens from your kind,
Come gather here.
Let not the useless sorrow
Pursue you night and morrow,
If e’er you hoped, hope now.
Take heart,—uncloud your faces,
And join in our embraces
Under the Holly-Bough.